Pork Tenderloin

Tonight, we're having pork tenderloin for dinner.  I grabbed it at the store this morning because it was on sale, and pork is fairly easy to fix.  However, I have only recently learned the art of roasting pork in the oven without drying it out!  My favorite thing to do is drizzle a little olive oil over it, then season both sides evenly with salt, pepper, and minced garlic.  Then, I place it on a rack in my roasting pan and roast it uncovered in a 350 degree oven for an hour or two depending on the size.  If it's a 3lb roast, it generally just takes about an hour.  The trick is to take the pork out when it is precisely the right temperature.  Once the thermometer reads 145 degrees in the thickest part of the meat, I immediately take it out of the oven and let it rest on the counter for at least 3 minutes before cutting it.  The last few times I've fixed it this way, the tenderloin has been juicy and delicious.  Let's hope I have the same luck tonight!


I am also going to bake sweet potatoes and cook some apples.  I just loved cooked apples with pork!  As for our green vegetable, I am waffling between green beans and sugar snap peas...so I guess we'll just have to wait and see!


Until next time,
Muncho Mom

Casserole Craziness

It's been a busy day so far!  I spent the morning making food to take some friends of ours who just had a baby.  All of the recipes are very easy.  Here's what I've made:



Chicken Tetrazzini
1 16 oz box spaghetti
1 cup onion, diced
1 cup green pepper, diced
3 Tbsp butter
2 cans cream of mushroom soup
1 soup can of milk
4 cups Monterey Jack cheese
5 1/2 cups cooked, chopped chicken
salt and pepper


Cook spaghetti.  While spaghetti is cooking, saute onion and green pepper in butter.  Drain spaghetti.  Mix all ingredients with spaghetti in a very large bowl.  Makes 2 9x13 casseroles.  Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes.


What I like best about this recipe is that it makes A LOT! That means an extra dish to take to someone, or to stick in the freezer for later.  J



Corn Souffle
1 can whole kernel corn, drained
1 can of cream style corn
1 stick butter, melted
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup sour cream
1 box Jiffy corn muffin mix


Mix all ingredients together well.  Pour into greased, round oven proof casserole dish.  Bake uncovered in 350 oven for 1 hour.


This corn souffle is soooo good!  It rises very high in the oven, so be sure not to put it on the top rack, unless you want to be scraping souffle off your oven! 


Broccoli Casserole
1 package chopped broccoli, frozen
1/2 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated
1 egg, well beaten
1/2 cup sour cream or mayonnaise
1 T. grated onion
1/2 cheese cracker crumbs
salt and pepper


Cook broccoli 5 minutes.  Drain well.  Combine other ingredients, except cracker crumbs, with broccoli.  Pour into casserole and sprinkle crumbs over top.  Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes.


This recipe is from my mom and is tried and true!  In other words, you can't go wrong with this one.


One good thing about all of these recipes is that you can easily make lower fat versions of all of them by simply using reduced fat sour cream and reduced fat cheese.  I always use the Campbell's Healthy Request condensed soups.  


I also made some of those scrumptious pumpkin muffins to take along.  Now I just have to resist the temptation to eat one myself!


Until next time,
Muncho Mom

Back to Baking!

Well, it's been a long week, to say the least.  My daughter is finally feeling better, thank goodness.  I am very thankful for good antibiotics!


Today I was able to get back to baking, and I made a Pumpkin Spice Cake for a potluck luncheon we are having after church tomorrow.  The recipe comes from my mother-in-law, who is an absolutely wonderful cook. This is also one of my husband's favorite desserts, so hopefully he can get a piece before everyone else does!


Pumpkin Spice Cake
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
4 eggs, slightly beaten
1 cup vegetable oil
1 15 oz can pumpkin


Combine ingredients in order listed.  Mix well and bake either in a tube pan (greased and floured) at 325 degrees for 1 hour, or bake in a 9x13 inch pan at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes.  Top with cream cheese frosting.


Frosting
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 stick butter, softened
Mix together, then add:
2 tsp vanilla
1 box confectioner's sugar (or 1 lb)
1 cup finely chopped pecans


This cake is moist and delicious, and perfect for fall.  With the cream cheese frosting on top, it is pure goodness!!!

Until next time, 

Muncho Mom

Cough, cough, cough

Well, folks, it's that time of year.  The fall season has barely been upon us and already, my daughter has been sick 3 times.  The first was that nasty sinus infection she had 2 weeks ago.  This past weekend it was a stomach virus accompanied by a fever.  And just today we made a return trip to the doctor to leave with the diagnosis of a double ear infection!  Good grief!  


Anyways, all that said, the cooking has been slim-to-none this week.  I've been pulling surprises out of the freezer and Voila!  It's dinner!  Many moons ago I made a chicken lasagna and froze half of it.  Well, that was dinner last night.  Tonight, it was teriyaki marinated chicken breasts from Food City.  Did I mention they were already marinated?  All I had to do was throw them in the oven. Tomorrow I will have to be a little more ambitious, I'm afraid.  I have some ground round thawing out for meatloaf, and of course if there's meatloaf then there have to be mashed potatoes!  


So, sorry for the lack of posting as well as the lack of creativity!  Please forgive me.  I have been home with my sweet, puny little girl for 4 days now and am quite clearly suffering from cabin fever.  


Until next time,
Muncho Mom

Chocolate Pound Cake

Today, my one and only creation in the kitchen (other than cheesy scrambled eggs for my son at breakfast - but I'm not sure that really counts) was a chocolate pound cake.  I baked it for a cake walk at the Fall Festival for my children's school.  I thought, "Oh, a pound cake will be easy..."  After all, you don't even have to frost a pound cake, just drizzle some glaze on it and you're good to go, right?  Although this recipe is straightforward, is still took me longer than I had hoped.  And sadly, I can't even say how it tasted (the batter was great!) since I didn't get to eat it.  This recipe is another one from my mom!


Chocolate Pound Cake
2 sticks butter, softened
3 cups sugar
3 cups flour
1/2 cup shortening
5 eggs
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
5 T cocoa
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla


Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Grease and flour bundt pan.  Cream sugar, shortening, and butter.  Add eggs one at a time.  Sift dry ingredients.  Add to other mixture alternately with milk.  Add vanilla.  Bake for one hour.  Let cool on wire rack for 15 minutes before removing cake from pan.  


Boy, I must say that I breathed a huge sigh of relief when the cake came out of the pan fully intact.  That's always a gamble in my book.  Any kind of glaze will do here, really.  I used some vanilla buttercream frosting that I had leftover from my son's birthday cake!  I used the ribbon tip on my icing bag and it worked like a charm.  A sprinkle of sanding sugar on top added a nice touch, too.  Almost sadder than the fact that I didn't get to eat any of the cake is the fact that I forgot to take a picture of it!  Can I blame that on sleep deprivation?  My sweet daughter has been sick since Saturday, but her temperature was finally back to normal this afternoon, so hopefully things are looking up.


Until next time,
Muncho Mom

Use the Force, Luke!

Today was a BIG day in our house...my son's 8th birthday party!  He requested a Star Wars theme, so I made an R2D2 cake....thanks to my mom and dad, who had the perfect cake pan from a catering business they had many moons ago.  It turned out great, thank goodness.  For a while there I wasn't sure it was ever going to come out of the pan in one piece!

Oh, I should add that we did put in red candies for his "eyes"...or whatever they are.  My Star Wars lingo is lacking!  

I was really glad I'd made up the frosting earlier in the week, because that was a real time saver yesterday when it came time to frost the cake.  I'm also glad my husband talked me into getting those disposable frosting bags!

So, I do apologize for the lack of postings this week, but as you can see, I've been busy!  This cake stuff pretty much wipes me out, so hopefully I'll be back to the usual routine come Monday.

Until next time,

Muncho Mom

Is it really November?

I feel like the past several days have been a whirlwind! Having a sick child always throws the routine out of whack, so I am very thankful my daughter is feeling better.


I've got lots of fun things to post.  First up, homemade mini-caramel apples!  I made these for a fun (albeit not-so-healthy) after school snack on Friday.  I melted a bag of caramels with a couple tablespoons of water over low heat. The most time consuming chore was unwrapping each individual caramel.  I have since discovered that you can buy caramel "bits" in the baking aisle - no wrapping included! Ah, who was the genius who came up with that?  I used a melon baller to cut out little apple balls, then dipped them in the caramel and rolled them in chopped pecans and mini chocolate chips.  It is best to let the apples set in the refrigerator for at least an hour before serving.  They were a big hit!

On Sunday I pulled the sugar cookie dough that I had made a couple of weeks ago out of the freezer and we made Halloween cookies.  The kids had fun and the cookies turned out great!  

Today I was busy baking cupcakes for my son to take to school tomorrow for his 8th birthday!  Where have the years gone?!?

I hope the kids enjoy them!

Until next time,

Muncho Mom

Spaghetti & Meatballs

For dinner tonight I made spaghetti and meatballs.  In trying to come up with my weekly meal plan, I just couldn't come up with something for the ground round I had in the freezer.  Then, it hit me: spaghetti and meatballs!  One of my daughter's favorite things to eat, and I hadn't fixed it in FOREVER.  Plus, it's easy and does not require much prep time.  This part was especially appealing tonight, because my sweetie was home from school today with a sinus infection. Boo.  L


I love to use a recipe from Everyday Food for meatballs, and it's especially fun for the kids if you make little mini ones!


Mini-Meatballs
1 lb ground beef (I prefer ground round)
2 cloves garlic, finely minced
1 Tbsp plain dried bread crumbs
3 Tbsp grated parmesan cheese
1 egg
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
2 slices bacon, finely chopped (optional)
salt and pepper


Place meatballs in large skillet.  Add 1 or 2 jars of your favorite tomato sauce and bring to a boil.  Simmer on low for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.  This recipe makes 40 mini-meatballs, or 20 regular meatballs.  I usually end up freezing half the batch to save for a no-brainer dinner in the future.  


I also made a ball of pizza dough, rolled it out on my baking stone, cut it into breadsticks, and popped it in the oven.  I just love the Fleischmann's pizza yeast! So fast and easy.  I follow the recipe on the back of the packet and the dough turns out perfect every time!

Tomorrow night I think we will be having chili with some ground turkey I caught on sale this week.  What is fall without a nice hot bowl of hearty chili?!?


Until next time,
Muncho Mom

Roasted Chicken...I Finally Got It Right!

Tonight for dinner I roasted chicken.  Now, in the past, I've always had some dismal sort of failure when roasting chicken, specifically the bone-in chicken breasts.  I follow the recipe exactly, but when it's time to take the chicken out of the oven it is never done.  Yep, you know, when you cut into the nice meaty part and it's well, not done?  Ugh.  That is the worst.  So, back in the oven the chicken goes, to the weeping and wailing of my children who are starving and ready to eat.  I crank the temperature up just to get it DONE and then the chicken ends up dry.  Anyone else out there familiar with this scenario?


Well, tonight I had great success!  I happened upon this great blog on foodbuzz called "A Zesty Bite."  Great site!  Here's the link to the recipe for "Simple Roasted Chicken."


http://www.foodbuzz.com/blogs/us/texas/houston/4401655-simple-roasted-chicken


The recipe calls for white wine, but I didn't have any, so I just used chicken broth instead.  I am sure it would be even better with the wine.  Instead of putting the chicken in the oven at 5:00 (the recipe said to roast it for 50 minutes and we eat dinner at 6:00), I got it all ready to go by 4:00.  Miracle of all miracles, the chicken was actually done in one hour!  It came out moist, delicious and flavorful.  I will definitely be making this dish again!

This morning while I was preparing breakfast I also made a loaf of banana bread for a neighbor.  I'm not a big fan of bananas once they get really ripe, so honestly I was looking for a good excuse to use them up!  I made some chocolate chip mini-muffins with the extra batter and they were a hit!  My kids gobbled them up.  In fact, I was amazed by how much food my children consumed this morning for breakfast.  My soon-to-be 8 year old son had a whole plate of scrambled eggs, two pieces of bacon, a bowl of blueberries and two muffins!  My 5 year old did not let her brother put her to shame.  She ate an entire omelet, one piece of bacon, and two muffins! I'm telling you, it is a wonderful thing to watch my two kiddos eat a good breakfast to start their day off right!

Here's that banana bread recipe.  It's another winner from my Mom!

Banana Bread

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup sugar

3 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

3 Tbsp oil

3/4 cup milk

1 cup mashed bananas (2 or 3 medium)

1 egg

Measure all ingredients into mixer bowl.  Beat on medium speed for 1-2 minutes (unless it's 6am in the morning and your children are still slumbering peacefully, in which case it is necessary to mix by hand with a spatula).  Pour into greased and floured loaf pans.  Makes 2 loaves, or 1 large loaf and 24 mini-muffins.  Bake at 350 degrees for 60 minutes for the loaves, and 30 minutes for the muffins, being sure to rotate the pans halfway through cooking.  YUM!

Until next time,

Muncho Mom

What's With the Name?

Some of you may be wondering why I named my blog "Muncho Mom."  Many of you other moms out there may be able to identify with me when I say I am always hearing constant munching!  The munching of my children, that is.  Whether it's munching going on at snacktime or munching their lunch leftovers on the way home from school, my kids LOVE to eat!  Really, who doesn't?  But I am so blessed to have two children who are truly wonderful, totally not picky eaters!  So, it's Muncho Mom for me.  Munch, munch, munch....


Remember those corn muffins I made for dinner last night?  They were great!  The Martha Stewart recipe was quick and easy, and they rose beautifully in the oven.  If you like cornbread that's not sweet, I wouldn't recommend these, as they do have some sugar in them.  And a whole stick of butter!  A little indulgence every once in a while is not a totally bad thing, right?  We all enjoyed them, so this recipe is a keeper!

Tomorrow is normally my baking day, but I just happen to have an appointment in the middle of the day (darn!), so I don't think I'll get much baking done.  So, I've been busy doing a couple of things today.  First, I made another batch of those granola bites!  They seem to disappear very fast at our house.  After making the bites, I had a little bit of the granola mixture leftover, so I put it in a bowl and poured milk over it just to see what it would taste like as a cereal.  It was scrumptious!  Here's the link for the granola bites once again:

http://www.anotherlunch.com/2010/05/recipe-chocolate-chip-granola-bites.html

Then, I whipped up a batch of buttercream icing for some mini cupcakes I've had in the freezer.  They'll be perfect for the kid's lunches, and I made them Halloween-y with some candy corn on top!

Cute, huh?  The recipe I use for frosting is from a dear friend of ours who used to bake our children's birthday cakes every year.  She gave me her recipe and I've had good results every time!

Decorator Icing

1 cup solid Crisco

(or 1/2 cup Crisco and 1/2 cup butter)

pinch of salt

1 t. vanilla

1 t. almond flavoring

2/3 cup cool water (or less, depending on the consistency you want)

2 lbs. powdered sugar

Mix all ingredients well.

I always sift the powdered sugar, and the amount of water can vary depending on the consistency you like. If you want smooth, creamy frosting that is easy to spread, I would recommend using half butter and half Crisco.  However, if you are going to use the frosting for decorating only, use less butter and more Crisco.

I'm currently having a dilemma over what to fix for dinner.  I came home from the grocery store this morning with pork chops and bone-in chicken breasts.  I could do Lady & Sons pork chops (a Paula Deen recipe!), sweet potatoes, cooked apples, and peas....or roast chicken, oven fries, corn on the cob, and broccoli.  Decisions, decisions.  I love the combination of pork with sweet potatoes and apples.  Then there's the quandry of only having one oven.  Do I roast the chicken first, then do the oven fries while the chicken cools?  It's a tough one.  I guess we'll see!

Until next time,

Muncho Mom

Back to Beans!

Another Monday and only a week left in the month of October? Good grief!  Where did the time go?


Last week I added an Italian flair to our meatless dinner by making homemade cheese calzones and a side dish of pasta with vegetables.  Today, it's back to beans!  I am making pinto beans, corn muffins, roasted potatoes, green beans, and mac and cheese.  May throw in some spinach too.  The roasted potatoes and green beans are leftover from Thursday night's dinner, which was a pot roast.  I used a recipe from The Pioneer Woman.  It was very savory and delicious, but alas, the meat did not get as tender as I had hoped.  Next time: cook for 5-6 hours instead of 3-4!  It was still good, but I guess I had high hopes.  At least it was not a total failure.  I've never cooked a roast with fresh herbs before and it really made a difference!

Look at my beautiful pot roast!

If you want to try it yourself, follow this link for the recipe: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2011/09/2008_the_year_of_the_pot_roast/


Anyways, tonight I'm hoping to try out a new recipe for corn muffins from The Martha Stewart Cookbook.


Corn Muffins
1 1/2 cups yellow cornmeal
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 T. baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups milk
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 eggs, slightly beaten


Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Butter the muffin tins you will be using.  Combine the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl.  Mix the milk, butter, and eggs together in a medium bowl.  Stir the milk mixture into the cornmeal mixture just until moistened.  Spoon the batter into the muffin tins.  Bake until golden, 14-16 minutes.  Let cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes.  Remove from pans and let cool completely.  Makes 36 1 1/4 inch muffins.
I'll let you know how they turn out!


Until next time,
Muncho Mom

Real Men Eat Quiche

I made a ham and cheese quiche for dinner tonight and yes, my husband ate it!  It just goes to prove that the saying "real men don't eat quiche" is quite untrue.  Who came up with that saying, anyways?  This quiche recipe is from my mom and it's totally foolproof!  


Tasty Ham and Cheese Quiche
Ingredients
pastry for one pie crust (see recipe below)
2 cups sharp cheddar cheese
1 small can Hormal ham, flaked
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  If making pastry from scratch, prepare crust.  Place in pie pan and prick with fork.  Bake for 8-10 minutes.  Layer cheese, then ham.  Thoroughly beat eggs and milk together, then add the salt and pepper.  Pour filling over ham.  Bake quiche in oven for 1 hour.  Cover with aluminum foil if edges begin to get too brown.  Remove from oven and let it cool for 5-10 minutes before cutting and serving.  Cheesy, yummy goodness.  Enjoy!


I think I posted my pie crust recipe before, but here it is again.  It is super easy!


Pie Crust
2 c. all-purpose flour (I use White Lily)
1 tsp. salt
1/2 c. canola oil 
6 Tbsp. water


Mix flour and salt.  Add water to the oil, then pour mixture all at once into the dry ingredients.  Stir to combine.  Roll out between 2 sheets of wax paper.  This recipe makes enough for two pie crusts.  Also, you may have to adjust the amount of water depending on what brand of flour you are using...I have found that different kinds vary.  I like White Lily the best because I think it yields the flakiest crust!


I also tried out a new recipe for potato soup with dinner tonight.  It's from Cooking Light magazine.  It was very good!  I actually found it on another blog - www.handletheheat.com.  Here's the link: http://www.handletheheat.com/2010/10/lightened-loaded-potato-soup.html.  I threw in some steamed broccoli (not in the soup, but on the table) and we were good to go!  A simple, warm-you-up kind of meal.  


And, since it is fall and I love baking with pumpkin, I made some pumpkin spice muffins.  These are easy, easy, easy.  Did I say that they are easy?  AND delicious.  The most beloved ingredient in this recipe?  An entire bag of Hershey's cinnamon chips!  Here's the recipe:


Pumpkin Spice Muffins
Ingredients
1 box spice cake mix (I prefer Duncan Hines)
1 can pumpkin (Libby's!)
1 bag cinnamon chips
1/2 c. water


Combine all ingredients well and divide batter among muffin cups.  It's that simple!  Really!  Makes 2 dozen regular muffins or 4 dozen mini-muffins (which my kids love).  Can you see the cinnamon chips???

Until next time,
Muncho Mom

Chicken Pot Pie

Tonight, it's chicken pot pie for dinner!  One of Grace's favorites, and it's been a while since I've made it.  I usually make the kids their own little pies in ramekins, but I ran out of time tonight, so it was one big pie.  I know there are lots of chicken pot pie recipes out there, and many with cream of chicken soup and celery, but you will find neither of those ingredients in this recipe!  The filling is made totally from scratch and since I'm not a celery lover, I just leave it out!


Chicken Pot Pie (adapted from Simply Recipes)


Ingredients
2-4 cooked chicken breasts, depending on the size, chopped into bite size pieces
3 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 large onion, diced
3 carrots, thinly sliced on the diagonal
1/2 c. all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 c. 1% milk
1 tsp chopped fresh thyme leaves
3/4 c. green peas, frozen or fresh
2 Tbsp minced fresh parsley
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In a large skillet (honestly, it should say large pot here, because a skillet is not big enough for all these ingredients...I use a large pot), melt butter on medium heat.  Add the onions, carrots and celery (ha!) and cook until the onions are translucent, about 10 minutes.  Add the flour and cook, stirring, one minute more.  Whisk in the chicken broth.  Whisk in the milk.  Decrease the heat to low and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring often (you will be surprised at how much the filling really thickens up while it is simmering).  Add the chicken meat, thyme, peas, parsley, salt and pepper and stir well.  Taste and adjust seasoning, if necessary.  Divide the warm filling among 6 10-ounce ramekins and top with pastry dough.  Cut a vent into each individual pie.  Bake at 400 for 25 minutes, or until the pastry is golden and the filling is bubbling.  Serves 6.

If you wish to see the original recipe, you can find it here: http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/chicken_pot_pie/.  I have cut the butter in half in my recipe, and I've never made it with the sherry, simply because I never have any on hand (must buy good cooking sherry).  I also decrease the salt because, depending on what chicken stock you use, it can get too salty.  I always use less, then add in more at the end if I need to.  Actually, this recipe is pretty complicated if you do it all - something I've never done.  I'm sure it would really be fantastic then! Enjoy!


Until next time,
Muncho Mom

Food Funk

Ugh.  It appears I am in a food funk today.  My weekly meal planning is going nowhere.  I need some inspiration!


Since I am muddling through this Monday, I am using leftover toppings from our homemade pizzas on Friday for calzones as tonight's dinner.  It's all veggie, so we'll be keeping with our meatless Monday theme.  Cheese calzones for the kiddos and veggie calzones for me and the hubby.  May throw in some penne pasta and sauce too....and definitely a salad!


What I'd really like to make for dinner tonight is butternut squash ravioli.  It would be perfect for the butternut squash we have remaining from our garden.  I'm not up to tackling homemade pasta today, though.  Here's the link in case you are feeling more ambitious.  Doesn't the picture look lovely?
http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/squash-ravioli-795775/


Did I mention I had my first foray into roasting peppers on Friday?  I decided to roast them for the pizza.  Wow, the taste was amazing!  But I think the true flavor became hidden in the cheese and other toppings, because when I asked my husband if he could tell a difference in the peppers, he said he could not.  Did I go to all that trouble for nothing?


By the way, have you ever tried Fleischmann's pizza crust yeast?  I used it for the first time on Friday (ran out of time Thursday to prep my usual overnight pizza dough) and it worked great.  I made two batches of dough and while I was kneading the first ball of dough, the second one actually rose just sitting there in the bowl!  The pizza crust was delicious too - chewy yet crisp.  One thing's for sure - I'm buying more the next time I go to the store!


Until next time,
Muncho Mom

Chicken Tenders for Dinner

The recipe I tried out for dinner tonight is from Family Fun magazine.  I love this magazine!  So, I figured the recipe for Chicken Tenders would be a winner.  I actually did not do the sauce, but only the chicken...and my kids loved it.  Usually I hate messing with raw chicken and just talk my hubby into grilling it, but this one was quite simple and the chicken turned out moist and delicious.  It was definitely a hit!!!  

http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/buffalo-chicken-tenders-1024910/


Tomorrow is pizza night at our house, so I'm off to make some pizza dough!


Until next time,
Muncho Mom

Granola Bites for On the Go

I found this recipe for granola bites a while back, and I really love it.  It is very easy, and you can add in just about anything you want.  The granola definitely does great in my silcone non-stick baking pan.  I highly recommend these if you don't already have one!


You can find this and other recipes on www.anotherlunch.com.  If you are into bento boxes for your kid's lunches, this is a great site!  My son loves his bento box! Anyways, here's the link for the granola bites: http://www.anotherlunch.com/2010/05/recipe-chocolate-chip-granola-bites.html.  I usually add 1/4 cup of wheat germ, some almonds, and some dried cranberries.  Be sure to spray whatever pan you use with cooking spray, and once they are out of the oven, let 'em cool in the pan for 10-15 minutes before taking them out.  They are tasty, delicious, and perfect to grab on the go...and in your child's lunchbox!

After making a batch of granola bites, I also wanted to do something Halloween-y for my kids.  So, I made some sugar cookie dough.  I like to have a special snack for them on Fridays, when we don't have to worry about homework, so this will be perfect!  I have some Halloween cookie cutters, so they can cut out their shapes, then frost and decorate them when they come out of the oven.  The recipe I use came from Woman's Day magazine.  Aside from chilling the dough for 1 hour, the ingredients come together fast, so it is quick and easy to make.  


Sugar Cookies
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 large egg
1 Tbsp light corn syrup
2 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour


Beat butter, sugar, and salt in a large bowl, with mixer on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Reduce speed to medium; add egg and beat until combined.  Beat in corn syrup and vanilla.  Reduce speed to low; gradually add flour and beat until blended.  Shape dough into two disks, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 1 hour.

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Roll out dough between 2 sheets of wax paper to 1/4 inch thick.  Remove top layer of wax paper and cut out into desired shapes.  Place cookies on baking sheet.  Bake for 12-14 minutes or until cookies are golden.  Transfer to wire rack and cool completely before frosting.

I can't wait to see how they turn out!

Until next time,

Muncho Mom

Autumn Eating

Tonight I am fixing some butternut squash that we grew in our very own garden!  Usually I roast it in the oven, or make butternut squash soup (delicious with sliced bartlett pears), but tonight I am trying a new recipe that's not complicated at all.  


Sweet Autumn Chicken

Ingredients

• 20 ounces fresh or frozen cubed butternut squash
• 4 cubed Golden Delicious apples
• 4 frozen chicken cutlets

• 1 cup apple cider
• 2 tablespoons butter
• Salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Microwave the cubed butternut squash until slightly soft — 6 minutes for fresh, 10 to 12 minutes for frozen.
2. Toss the squash with the cubed apples on a baking sheet and arrange the chicken cutlets on a second sheet.
3. Make a glaze by reducing the apple cider in a saucepan over high heat for 10 minutes. Remove it from the heat and whisk in the butter and salt and pepper to taste.
4. Pour half the glaze over the squash mixture. Bake the squash mixture on the oven's upper rack and the chicken on the lower rack until the cubes are tender and the chicken is warmed through, about 15 minutes.
5. Serve each cutlet atop the squash and apples, drizzled with the remaining glaze.
   
   
   I actually won't be doing the chicken cutlets...instead, I have a turkey breast ready to go in the oven.  So, I am just doing the butternut squash/golden delicious apples as a side dish.  I think it will be delicious!  I'm also going to do peas and mashed potatoes.  Should be the perfect comfort food for this rainy day!
   
   
   I went on my usual trek to the grocery store this morning and was thrilled to find honeycrisp apples for 69 cents a pound on the reduced rack!  What a deal!  These are some of the tastiest apples and if you have never tried them, you really should.  My kids love 'em!  
   
   
   As for the kid's snack this afternoon when they get home from school, I'm trying to decide between these two ideas:
   
   
   http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/ghost-toasts-689005/
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/apple-bites-688193/
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   Aren't they cute???
   Muncho Mom